You are designed to be able to handle stress as a mechanism for survival.

When your life is in danger, the hypothalamus (a gland in the brain) sends out a danger message to your adrenal glands. This would cause the adrenal glands to release cortisol, a stress hormone.

The role of cortisol is to convert the amino acids in the liver and muscles into glucose so that you can use the energy immediately. It also puts nearly all your other systems on hold to preserve energy. Included is the reproductive system and digestion.

It’s a fabulous system, and it works. It’s incredibly effective when you need a burst of energy to escape from danger. If it wasn’t, nature/God/evolution would have designed another method.

But you are not designed for sustained, chronic stress, day after week after month after year.

Your body cannot tell the difference between life-threatening danger and financial difficulties, or newspaper headlines, so it has the same stress response every time there is a perceived threat. Thankfully a life-threatening event that you need to escape from rarely occurs, but what is your body going to do with the energy that was produced and not used? Often it stores it as fat around the belly.

Cortisol and weight gain

Stress can impact your food choices. You are designed to crave sugary, fatty foods when you’re under stress, it’s simply responding to a hormonal trigger. Everyone has their favourite comfort foods.

But what happens when the pressure triggering those hormones doesn’t let up? Can long-term stress cause unhealthy weight gain? Yes. Yes, it can.

Cortisol is released when you are feeling physical or psychological stress. Like adrenalin, it is a fight-or-flight hormone. Stress hormones slow down physiological processes that aren’t crucial to surviving the immediate threat, such as metabolism and reproduction and speed up the ones you need immediately, such as heart rate.

It raises your blood pressure and insulin production while suppressing your immune system. As your insulin levels increase, your blood sugar drops, making you crave fatty, sugary foods.

Back when humans had to run away from wild animals and other serious environmental threats, a temporary increase in cortisol was a useful mechanism. But today, stress is more long term.

Over time, elevated cortisol can wreak havoc on your body.

There are many studies that show the connection between stress and weight gain and one study that found high cortisol levels enhance the feeling of satisfaction when you eat fatty, sugary foods.

Elevated cortisol levels in your body lower your metabolism and encourage cravings for fat and sugars while healthy habits, like getting enough sleep, exercising and eating a healthy diet, are harder to maintain when you feel like you’re maxed out emotionally.

Constant cortisol output can strain your adrenal glands, leading to adrenal dysfunction or burnout. Your adrenals get fatigued from the constant demand to release cortisol into your bloodstream, and they eventually stop responding. This is known as a low-cortisol imbalance, where you have a full night’s sleep but don’t feel rested and depend on caffeine or sugar to get you through the day.

It’s a vicious cycle, and your hormones are so intricately linked you can’t experience one imbalance without having it affect other systems in your body. This leads to multiple symptoms and imbalances, affecting everything from your mood, sleep, energy and productivity levels, to your weight, fertility and health and happiness.

• • • The frequency with which you get headaches and migraines
    • Your energy levels during the day and ability to sleep at night
    • Your muscles, including your heart
    • Your skin and hair
    • Your teeth and jaw
    • Your digestive system
    • Your immune system
    • Your sex life
    • Your breathing
    • Your menstrual cycle
    • Your fertility

Stress and reproductive health

Lowering stress levels is vital to a healthy menstrual cycle and your fertility.

An increase in cortisol levels disrupts your insulin’s ability to control blood sugar levels. This can increase levels of testosterone, preventing or delaying your body from releasing an egg during ovulation, or increase oestrogen, which is linked to PMS, painful periods, fibroids, cysts, etc.

When cortisol demand gets high, your body steals the resources it needs from progesterone to meet it. This lowers the level of progesterone, which is needed to get pregnant, sustain a healthy pregnancy, decrease PMS symptoms and have a regular cycle.

Increased cortisol levels can delay or even prevent an egg from being released. This is your body’s way of prioritising energy for survival.

A decrease in progesterone can lead to high oestrogen or oestrogen dominance, with symptoms ranging from painful periods, headaches, fibroids or cysts, mood swings, low libido and weight gain, primarily around the hip/butt/thigh area.

Your body is especially susceptible to stress after ovulation, which can cause changes in your period including spotting, early or late arrival, and heavier bleeding.

If you skipped ovulation due to excess stress, you can still have a breakthrough bleed, although this is not a period. A late or missing period due to excess stress is often a precursor to reproductive health issues such as cysts, PCOS, endometriosis, infertility, etc.

A lot of the ways you can reduce your stress levels will also help you get or stay at a healthy weight (and vice versa).

Ways to reduce stress and support your hormonal balance

Managing stress is a key factor in hormone balance, a healthy menstrual cycle and fertility, but it’s not realistic to expect stress to just go away, as you will encounter stressful situations and events throughout your lifetime (and most likely the foreseeable future, given the world’s current state).

It’s important to have tools available to manage and reduce stress so that you are able to return to homeostasis and optimise your hormonal health.

Your brain may try to convince you otherwise, but your health shouldn’t have to take a backseat during times of stress.

Such things as exercise, meditation, mindfulness exercises, relaxation are all ways that you can work toward good stress management.

1. Eat a well balanced diet

There are many reasons you eat, only some of which have to do with hunger.

If you find yourself reflexively opening the fridge, take a moment to think about why you’re doing what you’re doing.

If the reason is, “I just really need to talk to some chocolate about this situation at work,” take a breath and walk away.

If that kind of isn’t possible right now, set a timer for 30 minutes after you first start craving that bag of crisps or cake. Then, forget about it and do something else, preferably, something fun.

When the timer goes off, you may find that your craving is gone – because you weren’t hungry in the first place.

A well-rounded, nutrient-dense diet is essential for balancing your blood sugar levels, optimising gut and liver function and minimising stress on the body. Eat balanced meals regularly through the day and eat in a calm environment to ensure your body can tap into its parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest mode), so your body will be able to utilise and absorb the nutrients.

Minimise foods that cause excess stress and inflammation in your body, such as processed or sugary foods, and excess caffeine or alcohol.

Adequate hydration is crucial for every bodily system. Because everyone is different, from how high your central heating thermostat is set, how active you are, what you eat, etc. it’s pointless to give an amount of water to drink each day. If your urine is clear, you are hydrated. The more colour and smell, the more dehydrated you are. And thirst is the last sign your body gives you that you need water.

2. Set a timer and go do something you love

Have you a growing pile of books that you haven’t read yet? Are your paints getting dried up? Is your garden starting to look like a graveyard? Set a timer for however much time you can spare, even if it’s only 10 minutes, and do something that makes you happy. Investing in yourself always pays off, even if you’re short on time.

3. Move

Exercise of any kind enhances mood, reduces stress and raises self-esteem.

There are so many good reasons to carve out a few minutes of your day for a walk.

Walking can be a social activity or an opportunity to tune everybody else out.

Research shows that a brisk walk can reduce sugary snack cravings.

Studies suggest that being out in nature is good for your mental health. But if the weather outside is frightful or you don’t feel safe walking alone, that’s OK. Walking in place, wherever you are, is a great alternative.

Walking strengthens the immune system

Consistent exercise and movement contributes to improved insulin regulation and sensitivity while decreasing stress and inflammation, all of which is important for optimal hormone health.

Schedule some sort of movement into your daily routine: walking, yoga, stretching etc.

4. Sleep

You NEED sleep. It is essential for your hormones and overall health. During sleep your body repairs the damage done in the day – it’s like taking out the rubbish. It is crucial for insulin regulation, cortisol, adrenal glands and inflammation.

But when you’re stressed out, sleep can be difficult. So, make a nighttime routine to train your body that after this, comes this, and the end is to drift off to sleep. Stop using electronics at least an hour before bed, exercise in the morning, use orange/red lights in the evening and avoid anything that induces anxiety, late night eating, alcohol, etc.

5. Focus on what you’re doing right

When you’re stressed it becomes all too easy to fixate on the things you’ve done wrong. Whatever it is, if you don’t live up to your own high ideals, resist the urge to engage in negative self-talk. Instead, focus on what you have done – and are doing – right.

A gratitude practice can be helpful here. Being grateful is good for your health. It’s also one of the best ways to overcome a scarcity mindset. Keep a gratitude journal. If that’s not your thing, find another way to cultivate an attitude of gratitude.

6. Set small, achievable goals

Whatever you are working on, be it your fitness, keeping a promise to yourself, or if you simply need to get through a difficult day in one piece, setting achievable SMART goals can help.

A SMART goal is:

• • • Specific.
    • Measurable.
    • Attainable.
    • Relevant.
    • Time-bound.

Don’t expect yourself to eliminate a source of chronic stress in a day. Instead, ask yourself what one or two things you can make happen today that will get you a step closer to that goal.

7. Breathing practices and meditation

Grounding practices such as breath work, mindfulness and mediation can help you to tap into your parasympathetic nervous system. This will help to reduce cortisol levels and promote balance in the body.

8. Connection and intimacy

Research has shown connection and intimacy are extremely effective at lowering stress in the body. Human touch, hugging, sex and orgasms release oxytocin, which decreases cortisol levels and promotes an overall sense of wellbeing. Both sex and orgasms are also important for a healthy menstrual cycle and promoting fertility.

9. Talk to somebody

The “somebody” you talk to doesn’t need to be a therapist. Talking to a friend, family member, colleague or partner may help you feel better.